Not even friendship can bridge partisan views about border security

It was a Lone Star state moment during a congressional hearing when officials from Texas testified before lawmakers from Texas about security along the U.S.-Mexico border — in Texas.

During the hours-long hearing, the state’s Department of Public Safety director, a South Texas sheriff and a McAllen police chief were called to refute the Obama administration’s claims about border security.

• • •

President Barack Obama had claimed correctly that the United States has amassed and placed the largest number of Border Patrol agents and technology along the border with Mexico than in any other time in history.

But Texas officials, correctly, said the border region as one that remains dangerously daunting for U.S. law enforcement officers watching apprehensively as the carnage increases across the Rio Grande.

Republicans and Democrats have engaged in political hyperbole in the debate – which often grows testy as each side tries to win points with political constituencies and independent voters.

It was in this atmosphere during a congressional hearing where stark political divisions were being aired when a moment of levity occurred: Two Texas congressmen publicly professed their friendship despite disagreeing on the topic.

Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations, elicited testimony meant to underscore the “spillover” of violence from Mexico.

That testimony included the deaths of the American David Hartley, gunned down on a jet ski in Falcon Lake, and the assassination of Jaime Zapata, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Mexican drug cartels are implicated in both slayings. Both occurred in Mexico.

As a matter of professional courtesy, McCaul, the only Texan on the panel, opened the hearing up to other Lone Star state politicians for participation.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (Congressional photo)

Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose congressional district includes Falcon Lake and Laredo, said testimony about drug killings in Mexico unfairly painted American border cities as under siege by the cartels – a distorted picture.

And Cuellar released charts that revealed that McCaul’s hometown of Austin had twice the crime of McAllen or Brownsville.

To soften the blow before releasing the charts, Cuellar told McCaul: “You know you’re my best buddy in Congress.”

McCaul admitted that his best friend was Cuellar.

Then, as if to drive this point home, Cuellar again said that McCaul was his “best buddy.”

“Thanks for saying that – twice,” McCaul said, prompting Rep. Al Green, D-Houston, to publicly point out that Cuellar qualified the claim by noting that Cuellar added the term “in Congress.”

That prompted Rep. Francisco Canseco, R-San Antonio, to gaze over at Texas reporters at the “press” table to see if the media scribes were writing the exchange down.

They were.

Republicans, meanwhile, used testimony from Zavala County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, a Democrat, to bolster their case that the border remains porous with criminals able to slip back and forth to carryout out misdeeds.

Gonzalez said politicians would disagree with his definition of spillover violence – which includes carjackings, auto thefts, kidnappings and home invasions.

But he offered only generalizations in testimony and gave few specifics.

The government didn’t do much better.

Amy Pope, Justice Department deputy chief of staff, said American cities were seeing no spillover violence, then admitted the government does not have a formal definition of “spillover” violence.

That left it up to Texas Republicans and Democrats to drop their partisan arguments and reach a conclusion.